What mortuary school students should be learning has been a topic at several of the funeral director meetings I have attended in the last few months. It has been a consensus that many of the students the folks have interviewed are less than desirable. Whether it’s appearance (visible tattoos are a big issue) or attitude about work schedule or a true misunderstanding of what funeral directors do. Finding good folks is just plain hard these days.
I have also found that I don’t think that a lot of funeral home owners really understand what skills their new hires are going to need in the next 5 years. When I went to mortuary school over 20 years ago it was basically to learn what I needed to pass the national boards. Yes, I memorized terms and diseases and body parts. I got some practical experience in embalming but I really honed my skills learning from other funeral directors I worked with. Only about half of what I learned at mortuary school applied to the actual job I did.
Now that I am in the position of hiring people, the skills that folks learn at mortuary school are just a small part of what they need to know in order for me to even consider hiring them. Technology, computers, writing and speaking skills are an absolute must. Whether you are fresh from mortuary school or an experienced funeral director the following skills are an absolute requirement.
- A competent understanding of word-processing, spreadsheet and presentation software programs and how they work together. Preferably Microsoft office programs Word, Excel & PowerPoint. This means you better know how to create from scratch a memorial folder, place a photo in it, change the fonts and basically make the thing look good.
- A total understanding of digital photos. How to upload, scan, send, download, transfer, copy, paste. And a basic understanding of how to clean up those photos using a Photoshop type program (healing brush, magnetic lasso tool, cloning tool to name a few). A real plus is the ability crop people out of photos smoothly and place them into a printed document. If you don’t know what a jpeg is I don’t even want to talk to you. This also means you should understand about dpi settings and different quality of photos. Someone with good Photoshop talents is just as valuable to me as a good embalmer and restorative artist. Over 50% of the folks that call me don’t want to see the body. But everyone that calls me potentially has a photo that we can enlarge, touch up, add to a collage or video.
- A complete understanding of iTunes and other music programs. How to create playlists, burn cd’s, rip mp3 files from existing cd’s, purchasing and downloading music off of the internet.
- Basic video camera skills. And understanding of pan, zoom and focus. Plus an understanding of how to get the video into a computer so a movie file or dvd can be created.
- The ability to create a slide show with music on a computer.
- The ability to write complete sentences, paragraphs and stories. If you can’t write a good obit you are useless to me.
- The willingness and ability to speak to a crowd, clearly and comfortably (yes this takes practice). Just practicing reading a story out loud to a small group of friends or employees will improve your skills at this. Then help each other deliver the story better than you did before. This practice will also improve your skills in the arrangement conference.
These skills are on top of the standard stuff that funeral directors need to know. I see them as skills that are absolutely necessary for our future. There are many talented, wonderful, experienced funeral directors out there today that I would not hire because they don’t have these skills. And it doesn’t take a school to learn these skills. They can all be learned by purchasing some small training program and learning them on your own. It’s amazing what you can learn by reading the help menu in a program or typing a question in YouTube. That’s how I learned.
If mortuary schools want to remain relevant they need to stop making students memorize chemistry they will never use and microbiology that doesn’t apply and teach them skills that will help them serve the 21st century public.
I’m Dale Clock. Thanks for Listening.
Dale-Time 
And let the choir chant…AMEN..as they have been for twenty years. Mortuary schools and society are producing a poor product. Unfortunately, each state has their own rules and their vested interests in not changing them. Trouble is on the horizon…..RJV
Dale, I agree. While I was in school I was told by several of my teachers that THE MOST important thing was how the body looked. I think its important but not THE MOST important. In the last few months I’ve learned how important it has been to know how to do the things you talk about (I have no office staff office work is the duty of the funeral director). I believe the bigger problem may be in what subject is in the national test. Schools have to teach whats on the test. If they don’t teach whats on the test students will never pass. If the test is changed to reflect the things you talk about then the schools will change.
“Someone with good photoshop skills is just as valuable to me as a good embalmer or restorative artist.” Are you serious? It’s no wonder you are having a hard time attracting good employees. Had I desired a career in photo editing, I would have gone into digital art, not funeral directing. While I agree good computer skills are important, you shouldn’t state having photoshop skills is equal to embalming and restorative art, there is no comparison to tweaking a photo or reconstructing a deceased child’s face for her distraught parents.
Yes I am Serious. At 70% cremation it’s a matter of numbers. We scan in over 100 photos for the average family. We produce and print collages, Life panels, and life story folders all which require photoshop skills. Every family we serve (100%) has the potential of wanting photo collages and videos. Only 30% are requesting embalming. So if a funeral director can’t do photoshop or scan or download music they are only good to me 30% of the time. And tell me how many times in your career do you really think you are going to reconstruct a child’s face. It’s not a realistic comparison. What I have found is that funeral directors with photoshop skills are much better embalmers and restorative artists. They have the artist eye for making anything look better, whether a photo or a body.
Excellent article. I will be facing many of these issues as well..
[…] 3. From Dale C. Now that I am in the position of hiring people, the skills that folks learn at mortuary school are just a small part of what they need to know in order for me to even consider hiring them. Technology, computers, writing and speaking skills are an absolute must. Whether you are fresh from mortuary school or an experienced funeral director the following skills are an absolute requirement. (You can read more of Dale’s thoughts HERE.) […]
It’s extremely absurd and offensive to me as someone who is intelligent, respectful, empathetic, kind, and passionate that I’m being told that I might as well not get the degree and I’m “undesirable” for the job because of how I look. Last I checked the dead aren’t concerned with my tattoos and piercings. Perhaps the field would have less of an issue finding good workers if you were all more concerned with the quality of the individual than the uniformity of their appearance.
I am in college for Mortuary science….and I have a lot of tattoos and I am a very intelligent kind person. I have been in college for this profession for about one year now mostly I will wear business suits…I am a beautiful woman I also body-build just for fun…many people tell me I should compete but I am not into the who shallow expect of the whole ideal of competing. I will continue and also get my degree I am going to get this career it has been my childhood dream! At age 13 I used to say I wish to become an embalmer and a mortician…So I may help the grieving family deal with their loss, and prepare their loved ones for the next life. It is year 2016 there has to be a small amount of acceptance for who someone is besides the fact they have tattoos on their body.
Are tattoos allowed? i’m thinking of getting a couple but i don’t want them to stop me from getting my dream job.
Alice, I am not a fan of tattoos. They are a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling. But if you feel you must, then put them somewhere they are not seen when wearing normal funeral working attire.